The Problem of Evil
From The Problem of Evil by Peter Kreeft:
A child on the tenth story of a burning building cannot see the firefighters with their safety net on the street. They call up, “Jump! We’ll catch you. Trust us.” The child objects, “But I can’t see you.” The firefighter replies, “That’s all right. I can see you.” We are like that child, evil is like the fire, our ignorance is like the smoke, God is like the firefighter, and Christ is like the safety net. If there are situations like this where we must trust even fallible human beings with our lives, where we must trust what we hear, not what we see, then it is reasonable that we must trust the infallible, all-seeing God when we hear from his word but do not see from our reason or experience. We cannot know all God’s reasons, but we can know why we cannot know.
* * *
If it is intellectually dishonest to disbelieve in evil just because it is shocking and uncomfortable, it is the same with hell. Reality has hard corners, surprises, and terrible dangers in it. We desperately need a true road map, not nice feelings, if we are to get home. It is true, as people often say, that “hell just feels unreal, impossible.” Yes. So does Auschwitz. So does Calvary.
Wow.
For more, see his writings and hear his lectures.
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November 14th, 2005 at 2:21 pm
Part of your quote from Peter Kreeft reads: “If there are situations like this where we must trust even fallible human beings with our lives, where we must trust what we hear, not what we see, then it is reasonable that we must trust the infallible, all-seeing God when we hear from his word but do not see from our reason or experience.”
I agree with him but that is a decision which I came about through much personal struggle. There are certain points in life where that statement seems pretty absurd, not because it is untrue but because in the “present moment” it seems untrue. It is pretty hard to trust in God when you have spent nine months praying for your unborn child only to watch him be born and then die three days later.
Following this was a period of 1-2 years where I could no longer trust God, even though I had no where else to turn but God. Yet I could not pray. What would I pray about? It seemed that God did not near my prayers for my son. And if he heard my prayers then he must not have answered those prayers. And if he answered those prayers (which led to my son’s death), then what good was prayer anyways if it brought me this much pain.
You see the dilema. I heard another person speak on spiritual transformation who himself had lost a wife and a son. I asked him how does one learn to pray again? His answer was Romans 8.26-27, which reminds us that the Spirit of God is interceeding for us in prayer and therefore God knows what we need even if we do not know how to ask for it.
This was a turning point. Eventually I began praying again and it started out something like this: “Father God, I do not know what I need but you do, so in your grace and mercy will you hear my prayer and answer it? I trust you will. Amen!
At that moment I learned that if I was ever to recover from the horror of loosing my son, I would need to trust in God even when I could not see or understand why. This is faith and it is truly a liberating moment of joy with God.